If you talk to social scientists, egoism and narcissism appear are on the rise while empathy is on the decline.

In recent years, the ability to put ourselves in other people's shoes has been deemed extremely important for our coexistence - nuclear bombs will do that to a society -  but our own feelings can distort our capacity for empathy, according to a new paper. Emotionally driven egocentricity is recognized and corrected by the brain, they say, but when the right supramarginal gyrus doesn't function properly or when we have to make particularly quick decisions, our empathy is severely limited. 

A new study says it has confirmed for the first time that the smell of stress sweat does  significantly alter how women are perceived by both males and females.

Research has shown the ability of human body odor to communicate information between individuals. Not only have body odor signals been shown to convey messages about genetic connection, dating and general health, but body odors produced from individuals in specific emotional states have been shown to affect both the neural and behavioral states of the receiver, whether or not they are consciously aware of the source of the body odor. 

Rocky basalt pillars that litter Iceland's Skaelingar valley likely formed in a surprising reaction where lava met water - but without any explosion occurring.

The authors of a new paper say that non-explosive lava–water interactions happened during the emplacement of the Laki lava flow in Iceland during 1783–1784. Skaelingar valley contains a tributary stream to the Skafta River.

"Usually, when lava and water meet in aerial environments, the water instantly flashes to steam," said lead author Tracy Gregg, a University of Buffalo associate professor of geology. "That's a volume increase of eight times — boom.

Atrial fibrillation, the most frequently diagnosed type of irregular heart rhythm, is more prevalent in whites than people from other race or ethnic groups, according to researchers at UC San Francisco. 
Atrial fibrillation is the most common cardiac arrhythmia. People over 40 years of age have a 26 percent lifetime risk of developing this abnormality, according to the Framingham Heart Study.

Researchers have come one step closer to understanding unstable atomic nuclei.

The protons and neutrons inside the atomic nucleus exhibit shell structures in a manner similar to electrons in an atom. For naturally stable nuclei, these nuclear shells fill completely when the number of protons or the number of neutrons is equal to the 'magic' numbers 2, 8, 20, 28, 50, 82 or 126. But not always. For exotic nuclei, 28 is not a magic number of neutrons. Traditional magic numbers, which were once thought to be common for all nuclei, can change in unstable, radioactive nuclei that have a large imbalance of protons and neutrons.

A group at the University of Exeter used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) technology on the brains of 13 volunteers, all faculty members and graduate students in English at the school, to see how they respond to poetry and prose - and then declared that "scientists prove" poetry is like music to the mind.

The upcoming results in the Journal of Consciousness Studies found a "reading network" of brain areas was activated in response to any written material and also that more emotionally charged writing aroused several of the regions in the brain which respond to music.